The Hardest of Hearts
by Regency
Summary: AU. Dr. Regina Mills is the second most sought-after pediatric heart surgeon on the East Coast. Emma Swan is a bounty hunter at the top of her game. Their fates collide when a parentless boy named Henry comes to Maine's foremost transplant center in search of a heart—and his bail jumping foster brother Killian follows. WIP
1. Chapter 1

Author: Regency

Title: The Hardest of Hearts (A Bounty of Hearts)

Warnings: None, though if you have an aversion to hospital politics, you may be annoyed.

Spoilers: None

Pairings: Snow/Charming, Emma/Regina, and many other friendships

Rating: PG-13 at most (will change rating if needed)

Summary: Dr. Regina Mills is the second most sought-after pediatric heart surgeon on the East Coast. Aside from her professional accomplishments, the only thing she wants is to be a mother. Emma Swan is a bounty hunter at the top of her game and the son she gave up is the last person she wants to think about. Their fates collide when a parentless boy named Henry comes to Maine's foremost transplant center in search of a heart—and his bail jumping foster brother Killian follows.

Author's Notes: This is a late entry for the Winter 2015 Swan Queen Week of Alternate Universes. In other news, Belfry is a sound-alike for Baelfire, so I picked that as Henry's surname instead of Swan. And, the transplant politics included in this story are totally made up and simplified, but for the purposes of our story, they're going to work the way I write them.

Disclaimer: I don't own any characters recognizable as being from _Once Upon a Time_. They are the property of their actors, producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun. Anything that even resembles a real life person or place is purely coincidental and not intended, unless otherwise specified.

~!~

Henry Belfry was scheduled for surgery three days ago. Regina should know as she put in for the OR personally while her assistant had updated her scheduler. Three days ago, at 7:30 on Tuesday morning, young Henry Belfry, diagnosed at age 7 with congestive heart failure, was due to receive his new heart. A heart had been delivered indeed, but not to the chest of Regina's patient. Kathryn Nolan, Healing Heart's administrative director in charge of transplants and Regina's longtime friend, had been the one to break the news to her, an obvious ploy to keep her from setting a certain rival heart surgeon's desk aflame and smearing herself in the ashes.

Obvious ethical considerations aside, Regina's hands were tied. A heart had been available and delivered to a child in need. Once done, such an act couldn't be taken back, and Regina couldn't say she wanted it taken back. What she wanted was justice for Henry. He deserved a normal life of robust heath and laughter, no one of struggling to sit upright or even breathe. He was ten and yet had the stamina of an emphysematic sixty-year-old. He couldn't run, he could barely talk. That little boy's body would fail him unless he received a new heart within the year. This should have been his chance. As though it wasn't enough that his body continually failed him, Henry was a child of the system, chronically homeless for all that he had been bounced from hospital bed to hospital bed on the charity of others. He didn't even have the comfort of a hand to hold save hers. He didn't have anyone.

Regina made a vow to herself, as she reviewed Henry's latest test results in the solitude of her office. _He will get his heart, if I have I rip it from Gold's cold, grasping clutches._ Anyone who knew her reputation would realize she meant it. Dr. Regina Mills collected hearts and then she gave them to children in need.

And, Dr. Gold was running a dangerous race these days standing between Regina and a patient's needs being met. There might yet be casualties.

…

…

Emma Swan slammed into the auto mechanic's shop on what looked—and smelled—like the corner of Desperation Boulevard. She sucked down the taste of motor oil and Armor-All and got up close and personal with the first lowlife she set her eyes on.

"Where the hell is Jones?"

The flabby asshole in the wife beater and greasy specs gave her a onceover she didn't appreciate, expected though it was. She'd lost two collars to a competitor in the last week and rent was due; she was beyond not in the mood.

"I don' know nobody named Jones."

Emma produced a Benjamin out of her back pocket. She'd come prepared. "I have a hundred reasons why you should tell me what I wanna know. That's one hundred more than you'll get if I call in the license plates I see stacked on that shelf."

_This isn't even small-time. This is no-time. _Not even worth the effort of hauling them all in for a collar. The BPD might be willing to show some goodwill for the tip, though.

"You accusin' me of something', blondie?" Flabby tried to stand his ground, but he looked pretty scared. Sweat gathered on his temples. The place started smelling like pizza, a once beloved dietary staple Emma immediately lost all desire to eat.

"That's a chop shop buzzing in the back of the house. If I call my friends at the BPD, it's going to be a bust, a real expensive waste of time and your ass in lockup. So how's about you listen and let me and Ben ask you _again_, where's Killian Jones?"

Flabby sucked his teeth and shrugged.

"He's gone. Left the city. Said it was too hot for 'im and he'd be back in the spring."

"Bullshit. His family's here. His girl's here." Milah had been tightlipped as a statue until Emma mentioned the missing persons advisory circulating with her face on it. The woman had folded like a cheap shirt and given her the address to this place.

"I'm just tellin' yous what I got." He grabbed for the Ben and she snatched it out of his grubby paw. There was a smear on the bank note. Grease…she hoped.

"Sorry, that's not worth my time. I'll ask somebody else. Maybe they'll want double."

"You ain't good for it."

Emma wasn't the type to show off so she kept her petty cash in her boot. It was one thing to put your cards on the table, it was another to make a target of yourself and this neighborhood was rough. She didn't want to have to baton anybody—the BPD were starting to know her by defense tactics.

"If you say so. Kid down the street says he needs the new Jays. When he has 'em, you'll know where he got the dough."

Flabby grunted. "Jonesy's got a brother, he says. Up in Maine. Some kind of sick. I don't know the details but he needs work done. It's serious." The guy shrugged like it was nothing.

Suddenly, Emma felt damned old.

"How old's the kid?"

"The hell should I know? Old enough to travel."

"Blood or not. What am I dealing with?" She needed to know if she was looking for another Jones. Killian had been in and out of foster care his whole life. She knew how complicated family could get in that set-up, she was pretty much flying blind.

"Kin, that's all I got. Foster, I think. He mighta mentioned somethin'."

"Mighta? You gotta give me more than might for two hundred."

"Foster brother, a little kid with heart failure. Gone up to Maine for a transplant. I hear it ain't lookin' good."

"This kid got a name?"

"Prolly."

She cocked her head. Loath as she was to stick around any longer, given the conspicuous utility van she'd seen parked up the street, she needed more.

" 'S all I got."

"Tough deal." She pivoted on the glued heel of her boot and turned to go.

_3..._

_2…_

_1…_

"Wait a minute. I might remember somethin'."

Emma affected a bored expression. All the sawing and welding sparks in the back were starting to give her a headache. "What _might_ you remember?"

"Name starts with an 'h.' Harry o' somethin'. Maybe Henry. Last name's somethin' like Bailey."

"Harry Bailey?" It tasted wrong, she didn't know why, but she had a feeling that was as close as she was going to get, and time was wasting.

"Yeah, I think so."

She narrowed her eyes into slits, trying to get a read on the guy. _If he's screwing me around, I'm out two hundred and there's my car note._

"Expect to see me again if it turns out you're lying to me to throw me off."

He held his meaty paws aloft, his face a picture of wounded pride. "I'm tryin' to do the right thing. Cut a guy some slack."

With an eye roll at his hangdog expression, Emma pulled out the second hundred and slapped it in his grimy palm alongside the first. "Yeah, all right. Thanks."

"No problem." He licked his lips. "Say, you wouldn't wanna—"

"Not even if you gave back the money," she quipped over her shoulder as she left the dusty chop shop. She smiled in passing at the plainclothes vice cop walking a dog and strode down the dingy street back to her yellow VW Bug. She needed to stop back at her apartment to pack for a trip to Maine. Killian Jones was in for a long trip home whether he was ready or not.


	2. Chapter 2

After three days and no new leads or new hearts, Regina was seconds from storming into that smirking bastard's corner office and calling him a conniving sorcerer of an organ trafficker to his face. It was only Archie's timely intervention and promise of a bendable ear that stayed her silvery tongue.

"I'll kill him." She paced to and fro over the tawny carpet padding his office floor.

"You won't." Archie had sat his patient notes aside for her. That was who he was, attentive to whomever needed him in the moment.

"I might," she rebuked, working to keep the righteousness of her anger at the forefront of her mind. Archie was too good as defuse her rancor.

"Say that a little louder. You know I record all of my sessions. I'll enjoy being charged with accessory to murder for deleting your homicidal mutterings." He wagged his digital voice recorder in her direction.

Regina stopped short. "You'd do that for me?"

"You're the less worrisome of two chaotic neutrals. Think of it as my way of contributing to the moral balance of Healing Heart."

Archie often spoke of moral alignments when discussing his patients and their colleagues and the world at large. Regina tended to nod and hum along where good manners indicated, not letting on that she rarely understood his verbosity on the topic. Life was a matter of doing what needed doing, right or wrong, conscience be damned.

"You're a strange little man, Archie."

He winked at her over the rim of his bifocals. "Just call me Jiminy Cricket."

"Don't push it, bug."

Furious as she was at Gold's latest scheme to undermine her, she knew screaming her lungs to cheesecloth wouldn't resolve her problem. Regina would need to invoke a miracle—or work her particular brand of professional magic.

_I need to fight savvy with savvy—and power with power._

It seemed that Gold needed to be reminded why they called her the Queen.

**…**

**…**

It didn't take Emma three days to get to Storybrooke, Maine, where the Maine University Medical Center was. It took her three days to get con her way inside. Contrary to popular belief, Emma wasn't actually that good at running cons to people's faces. Crocodile tears were easy, arranging for a simple fender bender she could do in her sleep, but blundering into the pediatric ward of a world-renowned transplant center was so far beyond her experience she resorted to consulting Yahoo! Answers before she even got out of her car.

The responses to 'if somebody hypothetically wanted to sneak into a high-tech, maximum security hospital, how'd they do it? hypothetically' were only kinda helpful, the majority culminating in 'fake it till you make it' and 'just walk in, what's the worst that can happen?' The first response was useful—and insane—but still, it was something. The second one was not a good idea for a lot of reasons, most involving Emma's arm-length criminal record. _They start pulling background on me, I'll get turned back at the door. That can't happen._

Emma had spent the last ten years cleaning up her act, having all her dirty laundry aired for rent-a-cops didn't appeal. She had been to jail, she didn't like her chances behind bars any more now than she had when she was seventeen, and she'd been damned resourceful for her age. She had just been so damned young, and worse than that, she'd been head over heels for an unreliable punk. Her hatred for the SOB who abandoned her with a stolen car lingered to this day. Bad as it was that he'd ditched her, it was worse that he hadn't so much as shown his face when their son was born.

She had given birth in a cold, beige, lonely prison infirmary. That was where their child had come into the world. That was where he'd left her, too, when she chose to give him up in the hopes of him having better than she'd had. _Anything_, she'd thought. _Anything has to be better than being shuffled between families because you're too damaged to love._ All she had wanted for her baby was for him to have a chance. It was all she'd had to give.

Emma pressed her face against the back of her hands where they still clutched the steering wheel. Henry'd be ten—assuming that was still his name. By all accounts, Emma had kept her given name, but adopted children were re-named all the time. Her Henry could be a Dylan or a Sam or a Keith. She knew a couple of Keiths; she hoped Henry wasn't one, each had been more trouble than the last. His name had sprung to her head as she looked in his groggy eyes, heavy as they'd been, heavy as if he'd been the one in labor for fifteen hours instead of her. He'd been Henry instantly. She wasn't sure how she'd take it to know he wasn't anymore.

An annoying trill sliced the oppressive silence within her car. A quick phone check found her the recipient of two overdraft alerts and a tip from one of her informants near University Row about a collar she could make if she'd split the take.

"Great, that's easy money out the window." She scrubbed a hand across her face, feeling every one of the three days she'd spent traveling and sleeping in her car to save a buck. Her reflection in the rear view was a wreck; eyes sunken, skin paler than pale, lips chapped and nose red. Every moment of cramped sleep was written on her body for anyone to read—every moment of sorrow, too. She turned away, intent on reviewing her game plan for the seventh time.

"Hi, my name's Greta Kraut. I'm from the Department of Social Services. Where might I find Harry Bailey?" The smile she affixed to the sentence was a tense, cagey one; one she'd hesitate to trust if she saw it one someone else. _Meryl's reign continues. Why is this so hard?_ She tried to shake off her nerves. _Just get in, spot Jones, snatch him, and get out. That's it. You've done this a thousand times before._ Probably not a thousand yet, though not far off after this long in the business.

Emma swept her hair into a low ponytail and tried to make something presentable out of her scare collection of makeup. That done, she smoothed the wrinkles from her black sheer blouse in effort to imbue herself with the appearance of professionalism at least. Only the no nonsense camisole she wore underneath kept the top decent and she'd admit it was pushing it for a social worker, anyway, but it was all Emma had packed, so it would have to do.

_I paid fifteen bucks just to park. I'm a hundred in the hole for gas alone. Killian Jones had better be worth it. I'd better be paying bills for months off this bond._

The numbers were in her favor. Jones was wanted for theft, larceny, robbery, attempted abduction, small-time embezzlement, and counterfeiting. The Feds wanted him, the Marshals had been dispatched to bring him in, which meant there was a reward to be had for getting to him first. Emma intended to win it.

Muttering all manner of mayhem and annoyance, Emma filled up a faux crocodile skin purse with her weapons, zip ties, handcuffs for if things got desperate, and her best fake ID for bluffing her way past reception. She stretched her black mini-skirt a little lower on her hips to make it look longer and then topped her ensemble off with her signature red leather jacket. It was a near match for her bag. _Good enough for dress-up._

Emma gathered her nerve and locked her bug. At the center of the Maine University Medical Center, at the epicenter of Storybrooke, Maine, the Healing Heart Transplant Center rose in buffed chrome, shining glass, and scrubbed concrete glory five stories above her head. There was a fountain, copper she thought, scraps of metal welded together to make shattered hands cupping a battered heart. The heart was made of marble or something like it, a pinkish-red rock run shot through with white. When the sunlight hit it, the heart almost seemed to beat in those copper hands, like they had brought it back to life. _This is what they do, put people back together, save lives. I don't belong here._

Her gut churned. She missed Boston and her shabby apartment, that pub down the street from her place that served the best cheesesteaks this side of Philly, her idiot competitors at the bondsman's office. That was where she belonged, where things were dirty, where people got hurt and got up—not where they got help.

_This is just until I find Jones and get my take. I'm doing it for the kids, right? Right?_ Emma's old group home was about to be foreclosed. Even if she gave them every dime in her account, and she had, they couldn't climb out of the hole they were in. Jones was her golden ticket. She'd be the savior for a bunch of little kids with nowhere to call home. _Wish I'd had a savior like that_, she thought. She could have used one.

_I can do this. All it takes is one little white lie. One last con and we're all home free._

Emma steadied her nerves and put on a smile she hoped somebody might believe. By the time she walked the two-hundred feet to the plate glass doors, she just about believed herself. She was Emma Swan, reformed ex-convict, best damned bounty hunter in Boston, and not here for anybody's crap.

Call it a gut feeling, call it pipedream, but she knew. This was going to be a piece of cake.


	3. Chapter 3

Sorry about whatever that html mix-up was, guys. Thanks for the heads-up!

* * *

…

…

_I hate this part_, Regina thought, staring at Henry Belfry's latest round of chest x-rays pinned to the light board. His heart was the size of his two fists overlapping, enlarged to dangerous proportions. The fluid buildup in his lungs worried her. They'd foregone inserting a tube originally since he was set to receive his new heart, but now she'd have to authorize the procedure or risk the boy drowning in his own fluids. She needed to raise the dosage of diuretics and hope his potassium and magnesium didn't take too severe a hit.

Henry had undergone cardiac resynchronization therapy when he was eight after the failure of a bevy of medical interventions the year before. Lisinopril and then valsartan, beta blockers, aldosterone antagonists, a sole functioning implantable-cardioverter-defribillator the last of those low stakes. By his ninth birthday, Regina had been tapped to implant Henry's heart pump, a ventricular assistive device charged with helping distribute blood through the cardiovascular system when the heart could not. Henry's heart no longer could.

Henry was diagnosed with Class IV, Stage D systolic heart failure. While not impossible to survive, Regina's young charges so diagnosed had struggled every time. Only one had made it following post-transplant. The others, three of them, hadn't survived a year.

Regina rapped her fingers on the light board. She was at a loss for what to do for the boy. She was an exceptional physician, she knew that, the second-best on the coast. It wasn't unheard of for patients and their families to move to Storybrooke just so that she could treat their children. Regina was that good. What she wasn't was a god. She couldn't produce a heart from thin air; she lacked Gold's wealth of criminal resources, all those in need who owed him a debt and would do anything to pay. Her reputation for putting idiots in their places didn't extend to blackmail; she knew the desperation of having nowhere to turn, she didn't wish it on anybody else.

_I'll make this better as soon as it's in my power; in the meantime, I can talk to him. I can keep him from being lonely._ For a boy so kind and wildly creative, Henry had had no visitors, gotten no letters from loved ones, save for pictures drawn by younger children in the ward and care packages put together by hospital volunteers. Henry had been left to fight for his life alone. _I'm all he has._ Even his workhorse of a social worker had eventually deserted him. With no prospects for fostering or adoption, Henry's case file was simply taking up space on her desk.

Not for the first time, Regina felt she was on the edge of making a serious choice. She had thought about adopting for years. Once her wedding to Daniel had fallen through and her marriage to Leopold had turned sour, she'd given up all hope of a happily ever after that included sharing her life with a worthy partner. _Snow saw to that_. She scowled to herself and firmly turned her thoughts from the decades-old betrayal. Whereas she might have loved to carry a child of her own before, she no longer trusted that the kind, if ineffectual, passivity of her father could counteract her mother's poisonous nature in any child she bore. She would love them in their viperousness as her father had loved her in her darkest hour, and that was a weakness Regina wouldn't abide. Her mother had contributed enough cruelty to the world; Regina refused to be responsible for adding any more. But she could, as she did in her professional life, add kindness, add love to a life already in progress.

_It should be easy, shouldn't it? I'm gainfully employed and my savings are more than adequate, I invest wisely. My house is large enough to accommodate myself and a number of other people. My only criminal records are sealed. I'm stable. I could pass a psychological evaluation in my sleep. I'm a good candidate for fostering or adopting. Except for the most important thing in my life—my work._

Regina wasn't one to dally. When she decided to do something, she made plans, she _did_, and the process to become a foster mother was no exception. She spoke to her personal attorney, she consulted Kathryn and Archie. She even visited her late father's grave. The surgeon of god complex fame _prayed_ for guidance as she hadn't since she ceased to believe when she was a girl and Henry Mills was quite suddenly dead of an undiagnosed congenital heart condition. By the time she'd filed her first application, she was filled with the courage of her convictions, she was positive she was making the right choice. The first agency did not agree. Nor did the second. The third. The fourth. She'd stopped at five. Their reservations had been unanimous in every case; she was an almost ideal candidate—almost—but she worked too much and she had too sparse a support system for them to recommend her as a candidate. 'Perhaps a change of profession…,' they'd suggested, as though it weren't this profession that permitted her the financial freedom to consider adding another to her family of one. Whatever their suggestions for how she might improve her chances, their answer had been 'no' because that was Regina's answer, too. She saved dozens of children per year, she couldn't see giving that up to love just one.

And so her life remained a routine of thrilling work and an empty home. This was the life she chose, saving others. She'd let herself regret it later.

Regina entered the Pedes Ward quietly. The kitchen attendants were distributing lunches to the patients and their families. The candy stripers were ducking into each room after, passing out _Highlights_ magazines for the small ones and chapter books for the older children. _I'll have Nurse Aurora check the rooms for candy contraband after the staff meeting. I'm sure Mulan will be more than willing to give her a hand._ Regina snagged a box of candy hearts without looking and tucked it into her lab coat. She felt hospital librarian and frequent Pedes volunteer, Belle French, roll her eyes on catching her in the act. Eyes like a watchful schoolmarm, that girl, but she'd never given Regina any trouble worth mentioning.

Upon approaching the room Henry shared with an older boy named Peter, she heard the painfully endearing wheezing laugh of her patient wafting through the door. She paused and listened. He was rarely the joyful type, more the sardonic type. He was a cynic with a sweet candy center. _Like a child of mine would be_, she would have thought if she let herself. Yet becoming his mother would mean no longer being his doctor, and this heart was too precious to entrust to anyone else.

Regina knocked once she'd had her fill of the sound. It was strange, she doubted she'd ever grow tired of it.

…

…

Ruby Lucas had made herself scarce as soon as Regina appeared, not so discreetly leaving a treasure trove of Animorph books and licorice sticks behind in her hasty retreat. Regina took the woman's place perching on Henry's bed.

"You can't eat most of that that, you know that."

Henry groaned in misery, muffled as it was by the oxygen mask he had on. "It's the only stuff I like. The food sucks."

Regina scrunched up her nose, sympathetic. "It's pretty terrible, I agree, and that's from the best clinical dietician in the country. Think of how bad it'd be at County."

Henry wrinkled his button nose in the same way. "Gross."

"Yeah." The food made by Eugenia's kitchen staff was more than adequate when not hamstrung by dietary restrictions. Since Henry had the grave misfortune of needing more potassium and magnesium to make up for the wasting effect of his prescription-dose diuretics, his food tended to taste that much worse.

Regina wanted to take him out for milk shakes at the Rotunda Club on the other side of the medical center. They could set on the terrace and watch the traffic inch past on the cross-streets below after dark. She thought he might enjoying seeing the headlights play across the dark buildings at night, illuminating the windowpanes like witches' eyes, same as she did. But she couldn't do that just yet. He was presently a ward of the hospital, which made moving him anywhere a difficult proposition, and there was every possibility he wouldn't survive the trip given how sorely compromised his immune system had become in recent months.

_He doesn't have long._ This was why she'd given up on faith after her father's death. What use was a deity that killed good men and little boys?

"Do I have have to have more drugs?" He rubbed at the hydra of ports attached to his arm, the IV stand leading from it was heavy with meds. Saline for dehydration and nutrients to compensate for his poor appetite. Two pints of blood for his frequent anemia—unrelated, she thought, but she hadn't resolved that matter just yet. Inotropes to improve function and stabilize his underperforming blood pressure level. Nitrates for the pain. Lovenox to prevent blood clots, standard for all admitted patients. She made a mental note to order a Doppler of his lowers limbs. They couldn't yet rule out deep vein thrombosis as a culprit of his aberrant BP and heart rhythm, separate from the heart failure.

All that for one boy to live and she couldn't even take him outside.

"Not right now. You're all caught up. We'll check again after lunch, okay?"

Frowning, he nodded, and picked at his Batman pajamas. He used to rail against them, calling them kiddie clothes, but he loved them now. They were all he was allowed of the world outside, the only parts of it that wouldn't kill him.

Regina couldn't kidding herself, she'd take Henry anywhere if she could. Neither Mars nor Disney World wasn't out of the question. She had an acquaintance who worked with the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Perhaps it was time she put in a call. She'd make Henry happy or die trying.

She was about to ask Henry whether he'd given any thought to visiting the Harry Potter exhibit at Universal Studios when a platinum blonde in a cheap suit appeared at the observation window of Henry's room. She had a visitor's name tag affixed to her lapel. The woman was obviously checking her reflection in the mirror. She licked her teeth and tucked her flyaway hair behind her ears.

Henry hadn't had a visitor in weeks. _Atrocious clothes. Reprehensible manners. Poor posture._

Regina would have been informed if her patient had an official visit scheduled as she'd need to be on hand to explain his current medical status. Her assistant was meticulous in recording these events in her day planner to ensure she met all of her patients' needs. This was an outlier.

Henry followed her eye line to the oblivious woman primping outside. "Who's that?"

"I don't know yet, but I intend to find out. Back in a moment, dear."

Regina moved to the door with the easy gait of a woman who knew precisely where she belonged.

…

…

Emma wasn't so lucky.

"Hello," said the woman in the lab coat. "Who might you be?" Which was a totally fair question that Emma had prepared for. What she had not prepared for was being confronted by a doctor so hot she probably moonlighted as a model in Milan.

Emma swallowed and tried desperately to hold onto her game face. "Greta Kraut." She offered her hand. "Harry's social worker."

The woman didn't take her up on her offer hand. Emma cleared her throat.

"Hey, Harry. How's it going?"

The boy in the oxygen mask coughed, "Henry."

_Shit. _Emma blinked owlishly, trying to keep a confident smile on her face but feeling it begin to slide. "What?"

He pulled down his mask and panted, suddenly breathless, "Henry. I'm Henry."

Emma's smile fell altogether. _I knew it wasn't Harry. I knew!_ She frowned. _How did I know?_

"Sorry, kid." She winced. "I mean, Mr. Bailey."

The boy sighed and shook his head, re-placing his mask.

"It's Belfry, Ms. Kraut. His name is Henry Belfry. Might I have a word with you outside?"

_She has a phone sex voice, too. How's that for fair?_

"Uh, sure." Emma clutched her briefcase in sweating hands and followed the other woman out. The look of pity on the sick kid's face didn't reassure her any.

The doctor—Emma figured she must have been a doctor—led her down the hall a ways out of sight of the kid's room but close enough to hear the coughing fit he fell into just after they left. _Kid like that shouldn't be all alone._

When the dark-haired woman rounded on Emma, she was as ready as she was going to be.

"Who exactly are you?"

Emma played the part. "I told you, I'm Greta Kraut, Harry—_Henry's_ social worker. I'm here to make sure he's doing okay and that's he's not suffering under any undue influences." Emma had had her fair share of social workers, the spiel could vary.

"Such as?"

"Oh, you know, pushy medical professionals, pushy foster parents, former foster siblings, maybe. That sort of deal." The doctor glowered at the first part but Emma stood her ground. She'd been bitched out by ex-cons, she wasn't scared of a gorgeous geek with stethoscope and god complex.

"Henry doesn't have foster parents, Ms. _Kraut_. He hasn't had a steady foster family since his diagnosis three years ago. That seems like something a social worker ought to know, if they are in fact a social worker, doesn't it?"

"Well, yeah, okay, but I…I'm very busy, Miss—"

"Doctor," the other woman corrected, whip fast.

"Right, sorry." Emma squinted at the woman's breast—ah, her chest, chest plate that read R. Mills in embossed gold over black. She wouldn't bet on it, but she thought that might have been actual gold plating. _Shit, what kind of Ritz Carlton ER did I walk into?_ Her overall impression of Dr. R. Mills only reinforced her nerves. The woman was shorter than her with the posture of a woman miles taller. She wore royal purple scrubs and a lite brite white lab coat that reached to her knees. There was a gold-colored stethoscope around her neck. The right breast—er, ah, chest pocket of her scrub top was embroidered in gold, too, with the very seal Emma had seen on the automatic doors she'd passed through to come here. It was the emblem of Healing Heart: a heart stitched up the middle.

"Well?"

"I'm a busy woman, Miss—"

"Doctor," Mills snapped, sharper.

Emma closed her eyes, fighting back a migraine that threatened to claw at her neck. It was like being caught with a crowbar in her hand all over again.

"Doctor. Doctor Mills, right. I apologize for the terrible impression I must be making. As I was trying to say, I'm very busy. I have dozens of cases to oversee. Sometimes, kids gets lost in the shuffle; they just fall through the cracks." Just saying the words was nauseating. Emma had been lost that way, her casefile passed from desk to desk till it gathered dust on somebody's ugly linoleum floor, forgotten. Abuse allegations were investigated just in time for the family to decide they 'weren't what she needed' and ship her back that much worse off.

"That's unacceptable."

"That's the way this works."

"Yes, and that's unacceptable."

"What do you want me to do, lady? Change the system? I'd love to, tell me how! Where do I start? Bottom or the top? Who's paying? Where are these kids going? Who's going to look out for them? That's my job! I'm doing the best I can."

Dr. Mills regarded her with something that was almost respect. "That very nearly convincing. Very well, Miss…Kraut." One lethal brow rose, mockingly. "I need to see to my patient. You'll wait here."

"I actually need to talk to him."

"And I need to verify your credentials before you do. Mr. Belfry is a ward of the state. Until such time that he's been assigned a legal guardian, his wellbeing is my responsibility. I take that seriously."

The fire in Mills's eyes begged Emma to argue, said she was in the perfect mood to reduce an idiot to ashes using words alone. Emma didn't want to be ashes. Emma knew better to than run up to somebody spoiling for a fight; those were the ones prepared to win.

"I'll wait, right here." She dropped obediently into a plush armchair that had no business cradling her like a newborn baby kitten. _What the hell do they make these things out of? Love?_ "I may never get out of this chair. I think I wanna be buried in it."

R. Mills allowed the faintest twitch of her lips in response and Emma chose to count that as a point in her favor.

"If you make a big enough donation, they'll bury you in with a whole set in the Centennial Garden."

Better than any of Emma's current plans for life after death.

"Can I pay in installments?"

Instead of answering, Mills rolled her eyes and disappeared back into Henry's room, the door shutting firmly behind her.

_Could this be a bigger disaster?_ Emma didn't believe it. She'd seen stings go belly-up, they just usually weren't her stings. She scoped out the joint, eyeing every tall gangly guy that staggered past, walking hunched over steaming cups of coffee. Everyone looked the same here, hollow-eyed, exhausted, at the end of hope. This wasn't General Med/Surg, the people who ended up here had come to their last resort and were just barely holding on. _I know the feeling._

"Hey, you okay?"

Emma blinked up at a petite woman smiling warmly down at her. She was wearing teal scrubs covered in puppies under a white lab coat. The name 'S. White' was engraved on her name tag.

"Uh, yeah, I'm good. How are you?" Emma sat up, trying to look like she belonged.

"I'm good, actually. You look like you've been here for a while, but I don't think we've met." She put out her hand. "My name's Snow."

They shook on it. "Snow like the weather pattern or Snow like Snow White?" It was a joke. She meant it as a joke.

"A little bit of both, if you ask my mother. She picked it."

"Right," Emma laughed a little horrified at herself. _I should have stayed in Boston._ "I'm—I knew that. That makes sense."

"You wouldn't be the first to think it's a little strange, but I'm used to it. Something tells me you've got something more serious on your mind. Can I help?"

"I don't know, can you tell me how to handle Dr. Mills."

"I knew I recognized the shell-shocked look on your face. Hurricane Regina strikes again."

"That's what the R's for? Regina?" Emma had to admit the name fit. The woman was certainly as bossy as a queen.

"You know this woman?" came that voice Emma was probably going to be dreaming about.

_Speak of the devil._

Dr. Regina Mills was scowling at Emma and Snow as if they'd personally offended her.

Snow cast a curious glance between Emma and Regina, then shrugged. "She's a friend of mine."

Emma gaped. Why was Snow covering for her when they'd just met?

"She came to see Henry," Regina countered.

Based on Snow's expression, that explained everything. Emma still had no idea what was going on. Was she about to escorted out by security or arrested? She needed five minutes with the kid if he could go that long without hacking up a lung. She wasn't gonna take him anywhere. She didn't see the big deal.

…

…

Regina narrowed her eyes at the two women chatting where she'd left just the one.

Leave it to Snow to take in this stray in particular. If Regina's former stepdaughter knew how to do anything, it was interfere. Regina's gut instinct was telling her that Greta Kraut was lying at least about her name, but she hadn't had a chance to prove it yet. Her ID had passed muster with security, further background checks would take time and Regina couldn't justify keeping the woman from Henry in the interim in the event that she was who she said she was. He was her patient first and foremost and keeping Henry from a prospective foster family wasn't in his best interest, her primary concern. Regina wasn't even in the running, as much as it hurt to acknowledge. _Do it for him._ This woman was not an enemy Regina could afford if she was for real.

She swallowed back resentful bile. "You've never mentioned her."

"How would you know? You never listen to anything I say."

Regina scowled. She listened too often to what Snow had to say; whether she responded was another matter. "You'll have to vouch for her until the background check comes through. If she's a fraud, on your head be it."

She swept back down the corridor, ignoring Snow's sarcastic "Yes, your Majesty" and Kraut's answering laughter stifled behind her.

Snow trusted this woman and that had to count for something, however she might deny it.

_But she trusted my mother once, too._

Regina couldn't rely on Snow to protect the people that mattered to her when they were young. It appeared that fact hadn't changed.


End file.
